Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts

Twelve current or former Washington University in St. Louis students have been awarded Fulbright U.S. Student Program scholarships to study, conduct research and/or teach English abroad for the 2011-12 academic year. They are among 1,600 U.S. citizens who will spend a full academic year in a host country through the Fulbright Program.    

Ten cutting-edge Sukkahs by architects and designers from around the nation will be installed Oct. 18-22 on the campus of Washington University in St. Louis. The projects are winners of Sukkah City STL, an ambitious contemporary design competition that challenged participants to reimagine the traditional Jewish Sukkah — a small, temporary structure erected each fall during the weeklong festival of Sukkot — through the lens of contemporary art and architecture.

The Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts has announced the recipients of its 2011 Faculty Creative Activity Research Grants. Four art and architecture faculty members will each receive between $1,000 and $8,000 to support a variety of projects. These range from research about the Elizabethan “Lost Colony” of North Carolina and a monograph on Dutch architect Aldo van Eyck to a mobile art studio traveling the Gulf Coast and new methods of architectural fabrication in Jakarta, Indonesia.

Tomás Saraceno creates spectacular, gravity-defying installations and visionary sculptural models inspired by clouds, bubbles, spider webs and other natural structures. On Oct. 5, Saraceno — who was born in Argentina and now lives and works in Germany — will discuss his work as part of the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts’ fall Public Lecture Series. The talk, which begins at 6:30 p.m. in Steinberg Hall, is held in conjunction with the exhibition Tomás Saraceno: Cloud-Specific, on view through Jan. 9 at the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum.

The Saint Louis Art Museum and the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis have announced the selection of the next two Henry L. and Natalie E. Freund Teaching Fellows. Chelsea Knight, a New York-based artist whose narrative-based videos, photographs and participatory performances explore the nature of social control and the current state of democracy, will serve as the Freund Fellow for the 2011-12 academic year. Stih & Schnock, a Berlin-based collaborative team that focuses on issues relating to collective memory, will be Freund Fellows for 2012-13.

Art, of course, can be challenging, engaging, uplifting and enlightening. It also can be fun. On Saturday, Sept. 24, the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum will host Community Day, an all-ages afternoon of games, storytelling, art-making, workshops and tours led by museum curators and Washington University student docents. The event, which runs from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., is free and open to the public.

Environmental designer Mitchell Joachim — one of Rolling Stone magazine’s “100 People Who Are Changing America” — and Chicago architect Carol Ross Barney will join Christopher Hawthorne, architecture critic for the Los Angeles Times, as jurors for Sukkah City STL, a design competition that reimagines traditional Jewish Sukkahs through the lens of contemporary art and architecture. Rounding out the jury will be Hyim Shafner, former Chief Rabbi of India; Nancy Berg, PhD, professor of Modern Hebrew Language and Literature; and Bruce Lindsey, dean of architecture.

German artist and photographer Thomas Demand will discuss his work Wednesday, Sept. 14, as part of the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts’ fall Public Lecture Series. The talk is held in conjunction with the exhibition Precarious Worlds: Contemporary Art from Germany, which opens at the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum Sept. 9. Also opening Sept. 9 is Tomás Saraceno: Cloud-Specific. Additional museum events this fall will include a talk by Saraceno as well as film screenings, panel discussions and an all-ages Community Day.

Richard Meyer, associate professor of art history and fine arts at the University of Southern California and author of Outlaw Representation: Censorship and Homosexuality in Twentieth-Century American Art will launch the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts’ fall Public Lecture Series at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 7. The series continues through Nov. 9.

Joseph R. Passonneau, who served as dean of the School of Architecture at Washington University in St. Louis from 1956-67, died in his sleep Monday, Aug. 22, at his home in Washington, D.C., following an extended illness. He was 90.